Landscape Information
Built as a fire break after Portland’s Great Fire of 1866 and named Phoenix Square for the legendary bird who rose from ashes to live another 500 years, Lincoln Park was renamed one year later to honor Abraham Lincoln. With the 1868 construction of the adjacent U.S. Post Office Building the neighborhood became a civic center, eventually home to the new city hall and the Federal courthouse.
City civil engineer Charles Goodall’s geometric design called for paths to divide the site into quadrangles with clusters of trees, a central circle, and a border fence. The city installed a fence but altered the plan by adding diagonal paths and rows of elms. Among the park’s historical uses were Civil War reenactments in the 1880s, Sunday promenading, farmers’ markets in the early 1900s, and displays of Victorian-style “bedding out.”
The park fell into disrepair after the loss of its elms in the 1960s and one quarter of the area was taken for road expansion around 1970, leading to its current diminished size of 2.5 acres. Historic features remaining today include the decorative iron fence, granite pillars at the corners and gateways, pedestrian paths, and a circular iron fountain installed in 1871. The park was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1989.
